Current News

Vermont Business Magazine The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is issuing an air quality alert for Vermont for Tuesday, August 5. Wildfire smoke from Canada is expected to elevate concentrations of fine particles to “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” (code orange) on the Air Quality Index across Vermont. The air quality forecast will be updated on Tuesday afternoon for conditions expected on Wednesday. 

Vermont Business Magazine It is with great excitement that VermontBiz Magazine celebrates the remarkable achievements of all the individuals chosen as the inaugural 91 Influencers here in Vermont. This prestigious honor highlights their unwavering dedication, innovation, and impact in their field and within the community, as they also inspire and lead those around them. The name 91 Influencers was inspired by the date that Vermont became the 14th state, March 4, 1791. We believe that number of honorees was fitting considering we are a state with just over 645,000 residents but with so many influential people in Vermont. 

Vermont Business Magazine Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, led a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Attorney General Pam Bondi calling on them to reverse departmental guidance intended to throw people off of vital programs and services related to education, public health, job training and safety by requiring states, local governments and communities to unnecessarily verify immigration or citizenship status. These changes will also divert resources from community groups, agencies and providers toward meeting the added administrative burdens instead of delivering services and care for those most in need of assistance.

Vermont Business Magazine The Attorney General’s Office today announced that Robert Bivens, 56, of Montpelier, Vermont, was sentenced in Vermont Superior Court, Washington Criminal Division, after pleading guilty to one felony count of Possession of Child Sexual Abuse Material. The Court, Judge Michael Harris presiding, sentenced Bivens to one to three years in prison, all suspended, and a 10-year term of probation with conditions that require completion of sex offender programming, limit his contact with children, and restrict his access to computers. If Bivens violates the terms of his probation, he faces up to three years in prison. Bivens is also required to register as a sex offender for 10 years after his successful completion of probation.  

Vermont Business Magazine Vermont Secretary of State Sarah Copeland Hanzas visited a variety of small businesses in the Northeast Kingdom on Wednesday as part of a statewide listening tour following the upgrade of her office’s online business filing system. Three recently formed businesses across the NEK were selected by the Secretary of State’s office for visits, with the chance to offer direct feedback to Secretary Copeland Hanzas about their interactions with her office and state government in general. 

by Mike Del Trecco, CEO, VAHHS This week, Vermont’s hospitals are in the spotlight as the Green Mountain Care Board begins its annual hospital budget hearings. And it may not be an overstatement to say that the stakes have never been higher. Health care costs are under scrutiny from every angle, and Vermonters are feeling the pressure. Headlines have highlighted premium increases approaching $50,000 for some families. That’s simply unacceptable. And it reinforces what we’ve been saying for some time now: affordability is not just an abstract policy goal—it’s essential to access.

Vermont Business Magazine Average gasoline prices in Vermont is$3.09 per gallon, up 2.1 cents per gallon from last week's $3.07/g. The lowest price in the state yesterday was $2.89/g while the highest was $3.39/g, a difference of 50.0 cents per gallon. The national average price of gasoline has risen 1.2 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $3.11/g today. The national average is up 1.3 cents per gallon from a month ago and stands 32.8 cents per gallon lower than a year ago.

Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets The Healthy Food Financing Initiative Food Access and Retail Expansion (FARE) Fund is now accepting funding inquiry forms for food retail and supply chain projects that increase access to healthy, affordable food in underserved areas. Funding is designed to support catalytic projects that aren’t able to access traditional financing and may be used for predevelopment activities, equipment, construction costs, acquisition of land or buildings, and other one-time soft costs such as community engagement and environmental assessment. At least $9 million is available for implementation grants (up to $250,000 each), $1.5 million for technical assistance (up to $100,000), and $16 million for loans ($500,000–$5 million).

by Kristen Munson, UVM Near the bottom of a shady hillside in Jericho, a lone beech tree stretches high into the canopy, a relic of a bygone forest. Through luck or (hopefully) genetics, this mighty tree has avoided contracting beech bark disease—a fatal fungal pathogen that has proven deadly to mature beech trees. And it stands just outside a hotspot where a new pathogen called beech leaf disease (BLD) is spreading across Vermont forests. In the late 1800s, beech bark disease arrived in Nova Scotia and slowly expanded throughout Northeast forests. While the disease progresses slowly, estimates suggest between 50 and 90 percent of mature beech eventually die from it.

Vermont Business Magazine Girls on the Run Vermont, a statewide nonprofit organization for girls in 3rd-8th grade, is pleased to announce three new board members to the GOTRVT Board of Directors. With varying professional backgrounds, these individuals bring years of experience and leadership from communities across Vermont and will be integral in the Board’s work to continue to advance the mission of GOTRVT. 

Vermont Business Magazine This weekly report is a list of planned construction activities that will affect traffic on state highways and interstates throughout Vermont for the week of August 4, 2025. Please remember to drive safely in all work zones. Lives depend on it.    

by Bill Schubart A new book by Giulano da Empoli entitled “The Hour of the Predator” paints a bleak but credible landscape in which the bloom of technology distracts us from the realities of what’s happening around us and empowers technocrat billionaires to assume power over our lives. He traces these plutocratic power grabs in history from when the Spanish Conquistadors first arrived in Mexico where they and their innovations were greeted with curiosity and interest by Moctezuma and the Aztec nation. Several decades later there was little trace of Aztec society, a signal metaphor for the arrival of technocrats whose innovations distract us from their quiet assumption of power.